R.I.P.D. (English)
"R.I.P.D."
is an action-comedy crime film directed by Robert Schwentke, based on
the comic book "Rest In Peace Department" by Peter M. Lenkov. Ryan
Reynolds plays Nick Walker, a recently slain cop who wakes up as an
undead. He soon discovers that a whole other world exist, where a team
of undead police officers work for a police department known as the Rest
In Peace Department. With nothing to lose, Nick joins them in order to
try to find the man who murdered him.
Just as Mary Louise Parker tells Ryan Reynolds in the movie, it's tough
to be dead. Since his catastrophic turn as the Green Lantern for Warner
Bros.'s adaptation of the DC character, it would seem that Reynolds'
raise from the grave of destroyed comic franchises has evaded him again.
Based on the Dark Horse comic by Peter M. Lenkov, Ryan Reynolds
is Nick Walker, a police officer who is betrayed and killed by his
partner when both of them had stowed away several golden pieces of an
ancient artifact that their superiors didn't know had come into their
possession from an investigation. Whilst on his way to Judgment, Nick's
soul is pulled from the vortex leading up to heaven and ends up in the
purgatorial Rest In Peace Department, where he is given a chance to
serve as an officer and redeem for his corrupted practice that might
diminish his chances of being allowed into Paradise.
Walker's
new duty in the department is to arrest the Deados; dead spirits that
had managed to escape Judgment through the cracks of the heavenly system
of the afterlife. As the Deados reside on Earth, the longer they stay,
the more dangerous their rotting influence would have on the living
world. Nick is then introduced to former U.S Marshal Roy Pulsipher (Jeff
Bridges), or simply Roy, who is one of the finest law enforcement
officers that had ever lived and died, to be his partner.
From a
writing and directional standpoint, "R.I.P.D" has fewer flaws than
imagined, but its lackluster action sequences and questionable CG
effects does make it lose its credentials as a summer release. Director
Robert Schwentke makes the best of what he can from the world of the
comic to set the stage, but the premise itself already borders
delicately between ridiculous and unintentionally hilarious for today's
audience, especially when one of its most memorable scenes involves an
old Chinese man wielding a banana for a gun.
Ryan Reynolds'
deadpan performance manages to make the rookie/veteran cop routine fall
flat from being entertaining, but Jeff Bridges' full-on cowboy accent
and antics as Roy is a joy to watch. Kevin Bacon's charisma as the
conniving partner of Walker would have you rooting for the wrong guy,
and Mary Louise Parker as R.I.P.D administrator Proctor is a strong
contributor to the humourous moments.
In many ways "R.I.P.D"
feels like it was the "Men In Black" from an alternate reality where
"Men In Black" was never released, crass jokes are more acceptable than
witty ones, aliens are replaced with free roaming dead spirits, and Ryan
Reynolds is Agent K and Jeff Bridges is Agent J (yes, the roles are
reversed). If "Men In Black 3" is the dead horse of mixing buddy cops
with outworldy criminals that isn't worth beating anymore, "R.I.P.D" is
the final nail on the coffin for the genre, especially with the recent
comeback of straight buddy cop comedies like "21 Jump Street" and "The
Other Guys".
If you have somehow missed the trailers for
"R.I.P.D", then it's best to keep it that way and go in with, as Walker
puts it, a 'zen' state of clarity devoid of any expectations and
remember to follow the movie's instructions to 'relax body' to get a
little stir of fun for what it's worth.
Otherwise this one
belongs in the vault of the R.I.P.D, locked and sealed, along with the
franchise, and you rest easy to know that it has a short runtime.
